The U.S. National Committee for CODATA and the Chinese National Committee for CODATA, under the auspices of their respective Academies of Sciences, will organize a U.S. - China Roundtable on Scientific Data Cooperation, which will convene a series of meetings over an initial four-year period pursuant to the following Statement of Task:

1.Provide a unique bilateral forum for government, academic, and private-sector stakeholders in the United States and China to discuss and address scientific data practices and policies, pursuant to a mutually agreed agenda.

2.Serve as a catalyst and coordinating body for bilateral cooperation on scientific data practices and policies at the Academy and national level in each country, with appropriate recognition and representation of other thematically related bilateral and international activities.

The four areas identified for framing the scope of discussion include: data policy, cyber-infrastructure data applications, health and biomedical data, and environmental and geospatial data. The following types of possible cooperation initiatives in these four areas are suggested for discussion and potential implementation:

1)Exchanging of information and identification of issues concerning scientific data activities, policies and developments in intellectual property law and public information policies, including barriers to data exchange at the national and international levels, which may have implications for database development, access, sharing, and use.

2)Identification of scientific data and information resources that might be translated and made more widely available in our respective countries.

3)Identification of mutual high-priority databases in both countries that should have either mirror sites, or subsets of the contents established in each other’s country, and determine how to implement that.

4)Promotion of opportunities for both senior and junior scientists and engineers to visit each other’s countries for various periods of time to learn about each other’s scientific database activities and to engage in cooperative research in select areas.

5)Promotion of opportunities for university students to visit and study in each other’s universities and research centers in areas within CODATA’s scope of activities.

6)Exploration of the possibility for joint projects in scientific database development, studies, or training, including topics such as common standards and interoperable systems and techniques; metadata management practices; clearinghouses and portals for data resources; and other topics by mutual agreement.

A steering committee for planning and overseeing the Roundtable will be formed by the collaborating organizations.